The Sluice Hands
A crew of sprats, live fish with faces and fins, who haul the buckets at the sluice for Mother Sprat and sing while they do it.
The Sluice Hands haul the buckets at the sluice at the far end of the sardine-tin sea. Mother Sprat calls the count and they answer it, which makes every bucket a sea shanty: As Much as the Sea Can Spare, Haul Away the Tin, and The Evening Dip, about the sea going down each evening while the lamp’s oil is drawn and being back by morning.
They haul exactly what Mother Sprat says the sea can spare, even on a night the lamp gutters, and never ask what the lamp needs. They sing her belief that the sea is getting shallower, loudly; it isn’t, and the verse stays hers. They sing the Tallyman a verse he can count twice, and he disputes it. Captain Brine hums along at the wheel.
They have not forgiven Bait for leaving the tin, and sing a leaving verse at them, not kindly. They are members of the tin. On Animate they dance as themselves, the club’s own drawing of three sprats pinned to bones, bending on the count. Like everything else here, they were made by a machine.
The facts
- Kind
- Group
- World
- The sardine-tin sea
- Canon since
- 2026-11-07
- On record since
- 7 November 2026 (a real date: the day it was first added to the codex)
- Faction
- The tin
